The entries in the book that followed were…for want of a better term, detailed.
Continued notes on events of November 1861: So beautiful and sweet was tiny Aurelia Belle; left alone by a husband who, by her own word, had little use for her but to put her to work and bear him more children. Her family was responsible for the match, as she was considered past her prime, unmarried at the age of twenty-two; dangerously close to being labeled ‘damaged goods’. I could never see her in such a way.
She was bright, and warm, and welcoming…dear God, so welcoming, her heart cried out to mine, though she spoke not a word to me from it. I knew what I felt, I knew what I wanted, and I didn’t know how much a man was supposed to survive, holding back such desire because it may offend both God and man if acted upon.
I didn’t know how much longer I could resist telling her how I felt. I had never known such a fire within my heart as she stirred in me.
I turned the page and found an envelope stitched into the binding. The flap on it was unsealed, and there was a piece of paper inside. Dare I open it and look?
I was trespassing in so many ways, but I didn’t see how it could be helped. If I were to know the truth about everything, I had to read all there was to read.
I pulled the paper from the envelope and held my breath.
This handwriting was different, still, and decidedly more feminine than any I’d encountered so far.
John, I don’t have any right to speak such words to you, but I wanted you to know the flowers were beautiful and spoke to my soul, even as your eyes do.
I do not understand exactly where it is you have come from, but part of me believes you must have descended from Heaven itself, because my existence, so desolate just weeks ago, has been reborn by the light of your eyes.
I hope to see you tonight. We must be careful …indiscretion could mean my very life.
~Aurelia
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t stand to read any more that night.
So J. Howard Fox found himself here unintentionally, due to an experiment his engineers and scientists were running as they put the new locomotive into service.
He ended up in Wishing Cross, met and fell in love with another man’s wife, and the result of their union was the sweet, quiet girl I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about, no matter how hard I tried.
If Aurelia Belle had been half as charming as Marigold…
I found, despite the laws of God and man that condemned J. Howard for what he’d done, in this moment, I couldn’t really blame him for wanting to show such a woman, just once in her life, what it felt like to truly be cared for.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE NEXT MORNING, I was awake before Mr. Best again, and I was grateful for it.
I looked high and low for a place in my room where I could hide the cursed book, and I found it in a loose floorboard in the corner. I tucked the book beneath it and then hurried out of the apartment and to work as quickly as I could.
For a week, my routine was the same. Pick up the parcels, log them at the store, and deliver them; repeat the process in reverse for outgoing mail. I had little opportunity to interact with Marigold, though any time she looked at me, it was with great sadness and longing. Once or twice when we crossed paths, she opened her mouth as if to say something to me, but stopped when we were quickly interrupted by the vulture I had come to know as Mrs. Elvira Wilson.
It was the start of my second week in Wishing Cross, and I had fallen into a routine: work, dinner, reading the book, and sleep.
Mr. Best did not broach the book again, and I was grateful. I was having a hard time processing what I read. J. Howard Fox had not just had a one night stand with the wife of the local Stationmaster and gotten her pregnant. He must have truly fallen in love with her, and managed, somehow, to find his way back to Wishing Cross again after his first visit, though he was careful not to be seen by the locals—except, of course, by Aurelia Belle. I had no proof of it at this point, only a feeling. One I hoped would be confirmed by the contents of the rest of the book.
After another day’s work, I settled into bed with the book, and I saw a note scrawled into the margin.
Marigold Belle, born July 2, 1862. Suspect Sutton knows something isn’t right because of the way Aurelia Belle is behaving toward me this visit. So distant. The only moment her eyes brightened at all was when she saw the necklace. Having it made was a good decision. To the world, the symbol will mean nothing; to us, it means Wishing Cross. To us, it means everything.
Stolen moments, a few here and there, and I held the tiny girl in my arms and knew…just knew she was mine. She has my eyes and her mother’s lovely face. There is no doubt.
There has got to be a way to bring them back with me, or for me to remain here somehow…to save them from a life with this man with so little regard for either of them.
My next attempt to keep us together will be tested soon. I can only pray to God it works.
I turned the page and found a later entry.
September 17, 1882. Things have become worse for Aurelia at home. Sutton might have loved her once, in his way, but now his affection has turned to rage, and I fear for her life, and that of our child, should they remain here.
I also can’t risk losing Aurelia and Marigold the way that Jasper was lost. Such an unfortunate outcome to an experiment I hoped would end better for us both. It saddens me that, in my attempt to take him from Wishing Cross and give him a better life in my world, that he…
Suddenly, the text cut off.
I bolted upright. “Jasper? Damn it, who’s Jasper, and what happened to him when he tried to leave Wishing Cross? What the hell?”
I searched the margins I’d already read for another mention of anyone named Jasper but I couldn’t find one.
I scanned the pages beyond and still found nothing.
I knew that there would be only one person who might help me figure out who Jasper was, and why he tried to leave Wishing Cross with J. Howard Fox. Whatever had happened to him clearly confirmed for Fox that Aurelia and their child couldn’t be taken from their own time.
I had more questions now than ever.
And in the next entry, I found words that struck me numb.
In memory of my colleague, Charles Kelly, who courageously volunteered to go back with me into the past and was hidden from all but Aurelia.
Kelly attempted to stay behind in Wishing Cross to see if it could be done. When next I saw Aurelia, she told me how Kelly vanished right before her eyes, immediately after the special left with me on it. He disappeared as if he’d never existed.
I can only conclude from these events that if someone stays in the past beyond the special’s next trip, they won’t survive. They must go back when the train returns or all is lost.
It is killing me to leave Aurelia and Marigold behind. To know I cannot stay and they cannot leave.
There must be a way, by God, and I swear I’m going to find it. But the window is about to close, and I must go back or suffer the same fate as Charles.
You never did find it, I thought. You couldn’t stay, because Charles tried and disappeared when his window in time closed. But why couldn’t you take Aurelia and Marigold back with you? What exactly happened to Jasper?
There were many more blank pages, and then handwritten notes I struggled to make out, with no idea who had written them. Perhaps, I imagined, Mr. Donahue’s father.
Notes about a passage between the lines of time; an opening at Wishing Cross and back home that always varied in time but never in location…it was always a direct link between the two places.
I found another photograph wedged in between the pages; this one was of Aurelia Belle, looking very thin and somber, holding a small girl with light-colored curls upon her lap. There were no names on the back, only the date: July, 1865.
“So Marigold was three in this photo,” I whispered to myself. “Then what happened?”
I turned the page and was completely unprepared
for the next notation I saw within the pages.
Aurelia Belle Sutton, dead from pneumonia, January 4, 1866.
No…
I could only begin to imagine J. Howard’s heartbreak. I held my breath a moment, exhaled deeply, and read on.
I’ve named the engine after my darling, departed Aurelia Belle. I will devote my life to finding a way to come back here, at an earlier time, one in which I could possibly save her from the jaws of Death. There must be a way, and I will live every day of my life searching for it, and seeking out those who might help me find it.
Sleep, Aurelia Belle, until the time I wake you and finally bring you, and our Marigold, home.
A knock sounded at my door, and I stuffed the book beneath the mattress. “Come in.”
“You want to know, don’t you? The truth about Aurelia.” Best looked at me with haunted eyes, and I gestured for him to come in.
He sat in the small chair beside the bed and held his head in his hands. “I had my suspicions, I think the entire town did. Most dared not speak them, for fear of Sutton’s wrath. But my wife…upon her death bed, was delirious with fever.” He rubbed his eyes, then stared at the floor. “She said many things I thought made no sense until I put all of the pieces together. Certainly Aurelia had confided in her, and my wife kept that confidence until her mind was taken by the fever that soon also took her life. I swore I’d never speak of it to another living soul.”
“But I already know,” I whispered. “Aurelia Belle and J. Howard Fox were lovers, and Marigold resulted from their union. There is no doubt, the book confirms all.”
“Then you were right about what must happen to it before you go home,” he said, a new determination taking over his tone. “The book must be destroyed.”
“I agree. But I can’t destroy it now. Not just yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because without it, I may never be able to leave Wishing Cross.”
“I… I fear I’ve confirmed too much,” Best said, his skin paling as he suddenly rose. “Goodnight, Mr. Wainwright.”
“Wait,” I pled. “I have to ask you about Jasper…”
He shook his head and quickly departed, repeating, “Goodnight, Mr. Wainwright!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I SLEPT VERY LITTLE that night. My brain kept repeating passages I’d read in that bloody book, and what was worse, I couldn’t stop thinking about the punishment Marigold had endured, simply for inviting me to the Sutton home for lunch.
I had to say something to her. I had to apologize, somehow, though she never spoke to me now, not even when work required me to speak to her. She always very politely nodded, and her eyes begged me to excuse her. She would fetch whatever I asked for then went about her work on the other side of the store in the Ladies’ department.
I made a point to buy some paper and a few pencils at the end of my shift the next day, then I sat in my room struggling to find the proper words to say to her. Something that couldn’t get her into more trouble if it were found…though I realized any notes from me at all would likely warrant punishment from her father if he found out. I believed by this point, though, just about anything she did warranted punishment, simply because she existed.
I sat at the small table in the corner of the room and moved the candle closer to the paper so I could better see what I was writing.
Miss Sutton,
I was very troubled to learn of the problems that my short visit caused you. I wish I could have stood in your place.
Please accept my apologies, for everything.
Sincerely,
Keigan Wainwright
I closed the envelope with a blob of wax from the candle, hoping it would hold. As I had nothing to use as a seal on it, I just let it sit until it cooled, a small round circle on the thin, pale paper.
How would I manage to get it to her?
And how would I manage to get enough time with Best to ask him about Jasper, and what the town thought had happened to him?
Best had begun working extra hours, and we’d missed each other the past few mealtimes. I had the distinct impression he was avoiding me.
Tonight, somehow, I would have to find some answers.
***
I waited for the sound of Best’s key in the lock, and I immediately approached him.
“Do you know anything about the disappearance of a man called Jasper?” I asked, before he even had the chance to remove his coat.
He responded by taking a slow step forward and sitting down in the nearest chair.
“Where did you hear about Jasper? No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”
“Who was he? What happened to him?” I prodded.
“I don’t think I should tell you, Mr. Wainwright.” He looked away, and I watched him slowly remove one glove, then the other, and throw them down onto the table in frustration.
It was the first show of any such emotion I had seen in him since I’d met him.
“Why not?”
“You know why,” he replied softly.
“Because it has to do with Aurelia Belle Sutton’s mysterious visitor. Doesn’t it?”
He remained silent.
“So don’t tell me. Just stop me if I’m wrong,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Jasper was someone from Wishing Cross who tried to return on the special with J. Howard Fox.”
Again, Best was silent.
“This man tried to make that return trip in November of 1861 and was never seen in Wishing Cross again.”
“He wasn’t a man. He was only seventeen. He was…just a boy. He was only…” Best interrupted now before his shoulders slumped as he sighed. “Yes, Mr. Wainwright. He got onto the special with the stranger, and we never saw him again. His parents were heartbroken.”
“What did people say? What did they think of the fact he never returned?”
“Just gossip around town was all I heard. People said he’d been a fool to trust someone from so far away, and what a sad thing it was for his parents,” Best replied. “Jasper was their only son.”
He was silent a long moment before continuing. “No one dared talk about it after a while. Life just went on as though nothing had happened.”
“Thank you.” I retreated now so that I could get back to reading in the book. “You’ve been very helpful.”
“I hope so, Mr. Wainwright. I hope so.”
I returned to my room in a rush and took up the book. With new determination, I reviewed each page, and at the very back of the book, I discovered a paragraph of text that had previously escaped my notice. It was written sideways on an endpaper.
Jasper Wilson, son of the proprietor of Wilson’s General Store, died aboard the Aurelia Belle while I was unconscious, somewhere between 1861 and my point of origin. I hope he is resting in peace. JHF.
I realized the truth in full now; Fox’s initial experiment had been an attempt to take someone back home with him at the end of his first visit here, to see if they would survive. When that failed, he conducted a second test, to see if someone from his time could remain here after the window in time closed.
The disappearance of Charles Kelly answered that question with inescapable finality.
I had my answer about what happened to Jasper. It also explained the perpetual air of anger and sadness that swirled around Mr. and Mrs. Wilson at the General Store. Their son had left with a stranger on the special and was never heard from again.
There was no way that Fox would have risked Aurelia Belle the same way. This finally explained why he’d left her behind even though he was clearly devoted to her.
I sank back into my pillow and thought about Fox, about Aurelia Belle, and especially about Marigold. I had already played ‘what if’ in my mind, wondering if there were a chance that I could stay here, or if, given the opportunity to get to know me, she might decide to return with me to my own time, to escape the life she had here.
My hopes for either resolution to my situation were now damned by the very p
ages of the book I was sent back to deliver or destroy. Anyone who attempted to meddle with Fate and the timeline by leaving their proper place vanished or perished. Maybe it was some sort of universal insurance policy. Some unknown law of order that kept history on track.
In the end, all that mattered was what it meant to me. It meant I couldn’t stay, and even if she wanted to come, I couldn’t take Marigold with me.
I thought about her more and more with each passing day, and I worried that I was starting to have feelings for her that I knew I shouldn’t.
The idea of leaving her behind when my time here was up already made me feel sick.
I set the book aside and swore beneath my breath.
What the hell had I gotten myself into?
***
The next day, I watched for any opportunity to get Marigold alone, but there was no way. Mrs. Wilson seemed to have made it her personal mission to be certain we wouldn’t get to spend any time together, and I grew more and more frustrated. I was drawn to Marigold on a level I couldn’t explain. Maybe it was reading the history of her birth and knowing how her father had always treated her differently than the others. Maybe it was knowing she’d been hurt because of me.
Maybe it was because she had the kindest, sweetest face I’d ever seen, and even in the short time we’d spent together delivering packages my first day on the job, I felt something for her I hadn’t felt for anyone else in my life before.
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